Gardening

Floriade: making the world more beautiful

The Floriade, a once-a-decade horticultural exposition that showcases the work of the Dutch floral trade, artfully arranged in fanciful displays where the land itself becomes an artistic medium.

Photograph by: Handout photo
, Floriade

All gardeners need to know about this fabulous once-every-decade event. It is much more than a horticultural sales pitch; it is all about inspired landscaping and sustainable garden-making.

In May, I will be taking a group to Floriade, the world horticultural expo that is held only once every 10 years. It will begin its six-month run on April 5 in Venlo, south of Amsterdam in the Netherlands.

If you're going to Europe this year, you might want to schedule a stopover at the Floriade; you won't see anything like it again for another decade.

It is quite literally a mammoth show, covering 66 hectares (40 hectares of exhibition area) and featuring five distinct zones — Environment, World Stage, Green Engine, Education and Innovation and Relax and Healing.

The theme for the event is "theatre of nature" and the idea is to explore all the various ways that we can interact and "play a leading role" with nature.

Floriade is pitching itself as global theatre with international participation in which people get to experience "intensely" the importance of learning about nature and from nature; especially how crucial plants are to our daily life.

I think it is important for us to know about this event, because it is not just a promotion of horticulture and gardening, but an invitation to change the way we think about the way we see the world and how we want to live in it.

For instance, the Villa Flora in the Green Engine zone will feature "the greenest office in the Netherlands" and the biggest indoor flower exhibition in Europe.

But more than just a large glass building with a striking design, it will comprise state-of-the-art environmental technologies that organizers say will set the standard for sustainability for years to come.

The Green Engine zone will also focus on sustainability in the garden, especially the efficient use of rainwater, as well as the incorporation of recycling materials such as broken paving stones, old greenhouse frames and rusty heating pipes.

Barriers that need to be over-come in order for us to create more sustainable gar-den environments will also be identified.

The Education and Innovation zone will show how professionals in the horticultural industry are taking a different approach to garden making by working more conscientiously with nature; particularly in the way they use materials, soils and water to introduce "more wildlife, fascination and harmony in the garden."

This E&I zone will also focus on innovative garden architecture that makes bolder use of traditional dry stone walls and indigenous plants.

The Green City zone will be of particular interest to my Vancouver group, as we will see how fruit trees can be used as street trees in the future to enable communities to "harvest the streets." The emphasis will be on how entire streets can be turned into beautiful and productive food gardens.

"There will come a time," say organizers, "when our children will wonder why it was ever different."

Floriade won't be just about wandering around as a passive observer of spectacle; it aims to be a place where experts meet to share ideas, exchange information, watch experiments and find fresh inspiration.

As well as fabulous floral displays, there will be workshops, lectures and master classes.

In many ways, Floriade will be a classroom for professionals involved in designing and building sustainable, ecologically-responsible garden landscapes, both public and private.

The Education and Innovation zone will also contain My Green World, where visitors will be able to step inside a giant 15-metre high bean that is just about to burst open and germinate. Inside they will discover a "magical world of light, sound, smell and touch."

The Environment Zone will mainly focus on the importance of plants, particularly flowers, trees, vegetables and fruit, and how when they are prominently placed in our immediate environment they can improve daily life.

"Here you'll find out about the importance of bringing green into the city, indoors and out-doors, at home and at work," say organizers.

There will be a "Rabo Earth-walk hemisphere" — a pavilion designed to let visitors "walk across the roof of the world" and show how we can preserve and protect the earth by gardening more responsibly.

A film will play at the feet of visitors to demonstrate how people work the land and how food moves around the planet along with water, energy, data and money in order to allow us to live the way we do.

The Avenue of Garden Cultures will contain 120 different and unusual tree species and will overlook 15 gardens, each with its own interpretation of an office garden.

The World Stage zone will be all about getting to know other cultures. Visitors will be invited to immerse themselves in "a colourful melting pot of art, culture and entertainment" from around the world.

This area will also contain an entertainment area with a giant amphitheatre capable of seating 1,500 people.

The Relax and Heal zone will be all about how nature influences health and well-being. The zone will include a path down which visitors will be able to walk barefoot.

There will also be a "feel-good garden" designed to show how "energy and aura play a large part in determining the atmosphere of the garden."

The R&H zone will be a place to enjoy refreshing mint tea, fruit juices and relax on a bench and enjoy the beauty of the feel-good garden and its soothing impact on the senses.

Jacqueline van der Kloet, one of Holland's top garden designers who does a lot of work for the world-famous Keukenhof garden, tells me she was hired to do all the plant schemes for spring, summer and autumn flowering-bulbs at the Floriade.

"This Floriade is quite different from previous ones — no huge product displays, no monochromatic plant schemes, but lots of Impressionistic design."

She says each of the five themed zones will have a different atmosphere. "We planted almost a million bulbs last November. We went around scattering them everywhere. It was like the land of Cockaigne for me."

Jacqueline, who is the co-author of the official Floriade guide, says the Environment zone will be "great" and the Relax and Heal zone will be "lovely and a favourite for home gardeners" while the World Show Stage area will be the "favourite of many designers". She says it is impossible for her to pick a favourite. "I cannot choose!"

You can learn more about the Floriade at floriade.com

Floriade facts

- There will be a cable car — the biggest one in Holland — stretching from one end of the park to the other, from the World Show Stage at one end to the Relax and Heal zone at the other. The cable car will be capable of transporting 4,000 people an hour.

- Entry to the main park is via a 90-metre pedestrian bridge over the A73 highway.

- The relationship of humans and bees will be the focus on a special pavilion in a garden shaped like a flower created by the Association of Dutch Beekeepers.

- A hillside pavilion will take visitors underground to see how roots grow and to learn more about subsoil.

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